Phil's Healthy Recipes

I am going to start off with getting you prepared to cook the foods I cook, and then I am going to provide detailed recipes and cooking instructions. This will be an ongoing thread.

These are not diet foods for eating to lose weight. It should be understood that these foods are designed to be eaten in combination with weighlifting, specifically to the point where your muscles are getting sore, and not just light cardio. These are "bodybuilder" meals.

As such, I use salt, but in moderation. I use butter, also in moderation, but I use light butter. I suggest everyone change to it, because it honestly doesn't taste any different and it has half the fat. Anything that requires milk I use 2% milk. I almost never use light cheese, but generally use lighter dressings. I am a huge believer in that if you make healthy food properly, you won't feel like you're eating "diet food". This isn't some Lean Cuisine **** from the grocers freezer - this is delicious, home made, tailored to your tastes awesome food.

Everything I cook in oil, I use olive oil for. It is better for you than vegetable oil. That is my personal opinion, and I don't provide any facts to back it up. I use it in place of greasing pans with butter most of the time. The reason for this is you don't HAVE to use the "swill" in the bottom of the pan for anything - you can just dump it out, so I don't obsess over the fat content of Olive Oil.

I eyeball most things in cooking, so feel free to adjust according to taste or what "looks good" to you.

Make sure you have a nice set of chef knives, a good cutting board or three, some decent pans, a reasonable array of spices, and the like.

Don't feel guilty buying good pots and pans and knives - every time you use them, its one time you get a gourmet meal without having to go to a $50 a plate restaurant. More expensive pans and knives really are better. Go to TJ Maxx and Marshalls and look for these:

Calphalon

Cuisinart

Kitchen Aid

Those are my favorite brands of pots. I like anything that is nonstick on the inside, and "grey" on the outside. Stainless steel is good too, cuz you can use metal utensils, but its a little tougher to clean. For knives:

Henckel

Wustoff

OXO (any product by them kicks ass)

Get yourself some silicon utensils so you don't scratch up your nice cookware. Plus it will be easier to clean.

Preparation

Go through your cabinets and throw out:

* Anything that is old/expired/something you will never TRULY eat

* Anything with more than 10 ingredients

* Anything that has ingredients you can't pronounce

* Anything with ingredients that are more than 3 syllables or won't fit on one line. (you get the idea - anything that sounds like chemical ****)

* Potato chips - replace with Tortilla chips

* Cookies

* Anything Entenmanns that isn't light or fat free

* Pork rinds/garbage food

Do the same with your fridge. Look at all the expiration dates. Clean your fridge with bleach and water, or some sort of bleach containing cleaner - this will kill bacteria and mold inducing spores, and make your fridge not only smell and look better, but your food will last longer.

Clean your kitchen. I just came up with an arbitrary determination of what a clean kitchen is recently, since I have moved to my new place... Basically, if my kitchen is "clean", and I am cutting up chicken, and a piece falls off the cutting board on to the counter, if I would still eat that chicken, the counter is clean. If I'm like "hmm... looks kinda filthy..." then I toss the chicken to the animals, and its time to clean the counters (after cooking is fine ... but it should stay clean.)

Really clean your kitchen... dust on top of the fridge, throw out things you don't use. Cut yourself down to a reasonable number of plates, mugs, utensils, appliances, etc. and put away whatever appliances besides coffee pots and things you won't use every day. Break out the antibacterial **** (my personal favorite is bleach + water because it smells like clean, and its also retarded cheap - like $2 a gallon for bleach and water is free essentially) and clean the **** out of everything. Fridge, handles, knobs, floors, whatever.

Not only will it be a better healthier place to cook, but you will get excited about it because its like a whole new activity to get you "in the zone" and excited... you're changing part of your life for the better.

Go Shopping

Yay for shopping! Now that you have all this room in the fridge, you are going to need some FOOD to put in it! Something I always heard was to stay to the "sidelines" of the grocery store, and stay out of the center part as much.

Things you should get:

Veggies like broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, and whatever fruits "look good" to you. You really can't go wrong here. Some have various benefits over others, but bottom line, I don't care what you eat out of produce, its gonna be better for you than the same quality of Lay's potato chips, guaranteed.

Bread - I like whole grain breads. Some people are big on one type of bread versus another, but to be honest, for the average person that doesn't matter as much as that you are eating bread and not cheesecake with your meals.

Meats - 90% lean or better if its ground beef, boneless skinless chicken, lean cuts of steak like sirloin, whatever takes your fancy. Plan on eating meat for 1-2 meals per day. If you are a vegetarian - sorry buddy, this diet ain't for you. Go to the Llama farm and pick yourself up a bale of hay.

Dairy - 2% milk, Yogurt with real fruit and active cultures like Dannon, etc. Cheese - don't get the prepackaged cheese. It's loaded with preservatives. Go to the deli counter. EGGS - 2 dozen of em at least. You're going to learn to like eggs. LIGHT better - both sticks, as well as spreadable kind. F#$( margarine, I've known it was bad for me since way before any studies proved it. And yes, I CAN believe its not butter, because it tastes like butter flavored turds.

Deli Counter - Turkey, Cheese. Some of both. Forget the ham, baloney (the AMERICAN way to spell it), salami, basically anything that contains pig, salt, or anything that I like to call "Particle Board Meat".

Pasta

Lots of pasta. Pasta sauce also - look for just plain old pasta sauce, not meat sauce. You want something that has like 4 or 5 ingredients in it only. This way you can add your own fresh spices and deliciousness.

Spices

Speaking of spices:

Curry powder

IODIZED SEA SALT

Fresh pepper, and a pepper mill

Mrs. Dash - whatever kind you like

Basil / Oregano / Rosemary / Parsley - "Italian" spices

Olive Oil - pick up some of that. I like extra virgin, but its up to you.

Skip the chips and soda, and get yourself some Orange Juice, CranRaspberry, and the like... whatever you can find that doesn't have added sugar. Ocean Spray lite is pretty good too. And get yourself some 20oz bottles of water - Costco and Walmart are your friend. Get a flip cap instead of a screw cap. (personal preference).

Don't drink milk? Are you high? Milk is GREAT! for you! If you're lucky, its loaded with steroids an growth hormones already

First Recipe - Chicken Deliciousness Wrap
==============================
Needed:
White Rice (dont talk to me about brown rice. Its dirty.)
Gorgonzola Cheese
Eggs
Chicken
Tortillas
Italian Dressing or some kind of vinigrette (cant spell it) - Emeril makes some great ****, but it only works right if you yell "BAM!" when you put it on. I like his italian dressing.

Boil some white rice
Cut up a chicken breast (or two)
Put it in a bowl
throw an egg in the bowl
put about a tablespoon of mustard in there
rosemary, basil, parsley, oregano, black pepper (fresh ground is awesome!) to taste
Stir it around really well
Take a frying pan, medium heat, and heat up a little LIGHT butter and some Olive oil
Dump it in the pan and roll it around till all the E. Coli and Salmonella are deadDrain the grease off, and then dump the chicken onto a plate with a couple of paper towels (the good ones that are actually absorbent, not the sh1tty ones you cheap bastard) on it to soak even more of the fat off

Preparation:
Put "some" rice on the tortilla, and sprinkle with a couple of teaspoons of gorgonzola
Put "some" chicken on top
Put some of the italian dressing or vinigerretetjitte on
Roll it up
Stuff it in your face

Most of us would probably want to eat several of these. They are absolutely delicious. One modification I can recommend is to scramble 1 egg, and then chop it up into tiny bits and mix it up with the rice. I also like to take the steamed rice and lightly fry it with a tiny bit of olive oil. Not like chinese restaurant style fried rice, just browning it in the pan a bit with a little bit of oil.

Excellent Philabowl. A lot of stuff besides the actual recipe many people do not think about. Thanks for this thread and i'll be following along. As far as milk is concerned? I'll give up sex before I give up milk...Not really but you get my point

Speaking of food. Not to jack, but this could be huge, if it's offered in your area. In the Kansas City area, anyway, Chipotle is giving away a free burrito if you donate a non-perishable food item, all day. I don't know if it's nationwide or not, but worth checking out.

Since Phil advised cleaning out your cupboards of junk, you might as well exchange that junk for free burritos. I'm planning on hitting a few diff locations and getting as much as I can to freeze for lunch. Gotta love free food.

Speaking of food. Not to jack, but this could be huge, if it's offered in your area. In the Kansas City area, anyway, Chipotle is giving away a free burrito if you donate a non-perishable food item, all day. I don't know if it's nationwide or not, but worth checking out.

Since Phil advised cleaning out your cupboards of junk, you might as well exchange that junk for free burritos. I'm planning on hitting a few diff locations and getting as much as I can to freeze for lunch. Gotta love free food.

quite the oppurtunist arent we lol. thats pretty sweet, wish i could do the same.

Not because its spicy, although it definitely is, but more so in that its effect on my anus was not unlike pepper spray. My ass got really spiced up this morning. So, if you're like me and have indigestion issues, may want to have the pepcid handy.

While thats heating (i recommend low heat so you have time) mix all the ingredients above - I would say 2 or 3 tablespoons of A1 should do it. Don't mix the cheese in though. Throw an egg in the mix too if you like, and stir that all up, toss the meat (gingerly place) into the skillet, and chop it up with the spatula so you're not cooking a giant meatball. Brown it all evenly, and when done, take a wheat flour tortilla (or whatever you like) and plop some rice, some cheese, and some ground beef on there.

Cut up some chicken breasts into strips
Steam yourself up some rice, preferably with a rice steamer that lets you steam VEGGIES! But you can use raw veggies too.
Put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a Wok if you have one, otherwise a skillet is fine. Heat that up. Toss a teaspoon of curry in there, as well as lots of black pepper (fresh ground of course!)
Cook the chicken. Take either raw or steamed veggies once the chicken is DONE cooking, and throw them in the pot and stir it around. When you're about a minute from done, dump a bunch of the Iron Chef Sesame Garlic Glaze in there. Maybe 1/4 of a cup? Enough to cover everything with a LIGHT coating - make sure you like it before adding more
Keep heating for a minute or two. Then remove from heat, slap some rice on a plate, add that stuff to it and BAM! MSG Free, *****es.

Francesco Rinaldi ORIGINAL sauce (because its cheap, good, and doesn't have much besides tomatoes in it)
Light butter
Brownulated sugar (thats what its called on the package, look for it in baking goods. Its brown sugar pellets.)
Oregano
Basil
Rosemary
Parsley
Curry
Ground black pepper

Take about 2 cups of sauce and put them in a coverable sauce pan, heating on medium low. Throw 1 tablespoon of light butter in there. Add about 1/8th of a cup of the brownulated sugar (or more if you like, but 1/8th should be good). Add about a teaspoon of each of the other herbs. Simmer for as long as it takes you to boil up some pasta.